Well, this is interesting. Apple has released iOS 6 beta 4, and it removes one of the staples of iOS, included since its very first release with the first iPhone: beta 4 does not include the YouTube application. YouTube is owned by Google, so that could be an explanation. However, unless Google has its own iOS YouTube application ready, iOS 6 could lead to a lot of unhappy iPhone and iPad users. The large websites with sources inside Apple are probably hard at work trying to find out what's going on here - could just be a bug, or maybe a way to gauge public response by causing news sites and blogs to post about it. Huh. Update: thank god for sites with clout: The Verge confirms that Google is working on a stand-alone iOS YouTube application. Good news for users, since the stock one wasn't particularly good to begin with.

More to the point - didn't Google create the Youtube app, or at least "those who created the YouTube app would now work for Google"? That's how I understood it. The app was created for Apple by YouTube/Google. So, maybe there's no need for concern at this point. On the other hand, having seen the mess that is the iOS Gmail app, let's hope the iOS Google+ team members had more to do with it that the iOS Gmail developers!!

Without going into the whole H.264 is evil debate, why would they do that?
It's still the best codec out there. It's supported on all devices using hardware acceleration which for mobile devices is the only reasonable way to go.
Furthermore most content is available in H.264. TV is H.264 in HD and in some countries also for SD.
Digital downloads (legal or pirated) are mostly in H.264 (except for a few that use VC1).
Blu-Ray is wither H.264 or VC1. Based on industry trends, instead of dropping H.264 they should also be adding VC1.
WebM is cute as a concept, but ridiculous. Unless you convince the broadcast industry to also switch to it. Even Mozilla came to their senses and decided to add H.264 support in Firefox. Licensing is not an issue anymore as on OS X you've had support for a long time, Windows supports it natively since Vista and for Linux you have codecs from fluendo.
Somehow, I'm pretty sure that the silicon that comes with most computers of the past 5 years already includes a license for H.264, just like most consumer operating systems.
If you are a WebM fan that wants to live H.264 free, it's your choice, but please don't push it on the rest of us. Choosing WebM only shows ignorance of the standards out there. Yes, for MPEG5, we should ask for an open codec, but the current standard across all industries is MPEG4. And MPEG4 is everywhere. Even my webcam supports hardware encoding of H.264 just like Intel's newest chips.

Without going into comparative review of merits of VP8 vs H.264 - let's agree they are on par quality wise (or at least close enough to be competitors).

In regards to why Google would need to do the switch. It's needed in order to advance the shift to open codecs. The industry is still dragging in closed codecs era even on the Web. Google is one of the major pushers for shift to open codecs (at least they claimed to be), and they released VP8 as open for that reason. They even promised to drop H.264 from Chrome to advance that cause - but they didn't keep their word so far.

Doing that in Youtube would have a broader impact, and will give a kick to Apple, who is slowing the industry by pushing H.264 on the Web. If Apple is trying to bite Google by limiting access to Youtube on iOS, it's even more appropriate for Google to make a move in the right direction.

You obviously don't understand why MPEG-LA would go after VP8 do you? It has nothing to do with being worried and everything to do with portions of H.264 being blatantly ripped off. Don't assume you know something, especially when you haven't done your homework.

It's absurd how some of you think every time a company starts flexing their patent muscle it's because they're in fear of competition, just "trolling" to be assholes, and never about actually legally protecting their interests. It's very telling, revealing how little you really know on the subject.

Sure, if you jailbreak. Otherwise, iOS is so locked down that what Apple says is law. By your logic, Adobe could've built a Flash player for iOS as well (although I'm rather glad that didn't happen). Bottom line: Apple says no WebM, no WebM. Period. Given what an amazing job Apple have done in the past at supporting open codecs, I'd say we could see a WebM player for iOS in, I don't know, a hundred years from now.

I am pretty sure this is a restriction on interpreted code. As far as I know as long as your code is fully compiled in your application (or given that apple reviewer don't see your interpreter), they are pretty much ok. You can compile Actionscript/Flash code for iOS (I think the restriction on interpreted code ).

Third party codec is authorized (or Skype could not have implemented their VOIP client for example).

I remember some 3+ years ago with a Nokia N900 in hand I was told left and right the phone/platform sucked because it lacked apps. Most of the time I thought the reason iPhone had the "there's an app for that" was because ultimately its browser sucked and couldn't handle Flash.

Now that iOS has matured, it turns out many/most iOS users are watching YouTube via Safari, since the browser is better at it than the discrete app...

:) +1 at that. Also, after a while the "there's an app for that"-liners just wake up and realize it's easier to maintain a bookmark list than to have four hundred "apps" installed for every website and service they run into.